Lakers News: Rival Executives Still Convinced LA Will Sign Kyrie Irving In Free Agency

But should it?

At least one league executive is convinced that mercurial Dallas Mavericks All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving, an unrestricted free agent this summer, is headed for your Los Angeles Lakers this summer, per Steve Bulpett of Heavy.com.

“Things are breaking right for them right now,” said one opposing executive. “Memphis is pretty shaky as a second seed, and they could really use Steven Adams and Brandon Clarke (out with injuries). And if L.A. can finish this off, everyone else out West has questions.

“But I think they know they have to strike when they can, because who knows what happens after this?”

As Bulpett notes, LA went 18-8 after totally reshaping its roster at the trade deadline, among whom D'Angelo Russell, Rui Hachimura, Jarred Vanderbilt and Malik Beasley have emerged as absolutely critical.

"The interesting thing about that is they really did feel they made some progress with the trades," a rival executive reflected. "But how much of this do they really think will be solid going forward? I think we all know what they’re going to TRY to do this summer, but it’ll be tough."

"The fly in that ointment is what does Kyrie (Irving) decide to do? And how do the Lakers get Kyrie money and get him there to see if they can’t go with the superteam troika? How do they pay for that?"

"They’ve got to look at this as, OK, how many years does LeBron have and how many years can they actually keep Anthony Davis engaged? Because AD ain’t got any great love for this game. So their window is a short one. Do they go after the superteam piece and figure out how to bring Kyrie in there? You know damn well Kyrie is not coming in for a discount."

"So do you stay the course and stick with D-Lo (Russell) and Rui and all of that group and say, ‘OK, let’s play with the two stars and try and have some reasonable depth?'" the exec wondered. "I predict that they’ll try to figure out a way to pay Kyrie Irving and bring him in."

Both of the Lakers' point guards, Russell and Dennis Schröder, are unrestricted free agents this summer, and neither has played particularly consistently on offense in LA's postseason thus far, though each has had a handful of big-time shotmaking moments so far, and neither would be as expensive nor cause as many headaches as Irving.

Another league source detailed to Bulpett how the Irving-Luka Doncic marriage tanked in Dallas.

“If you want to win championships, you have to have two-way players," the source said. "They don’t have two-way players. Neither one of those two guys want to sully themselves with the arduous task of playing defense on a night in-night out basis. So what happens is they don’t, and sooner or later the other dudes say the hell with this.

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